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On May 15, 2009, Michael Barker “rejected” his PhD thesis at Griffith University, Australia. The title of his thesis was “Mediating Social Engineering: Moving Beyond Elite Manipulation of Democracy.” Email: mbarker [AT] riseup.net

Rejection Letter (dated May 15, 2009)

Dear Thesis Examinations Coordinator

Since January 2005 I have been enrolled as a Doctoral candidate at Griffith University, and in July 2008 I submitted a Thesis manuscript to the University for external examination. During the course of this period of study my political beliefs have substantially evolved, and I now consider myself a radical scholar.

The study I produced, titled “Mediating Social Engineering: Moving Beyond Elite Manipulation of Democracy,” critically examines how elite power-brokers, especially those assuming the guise of impartial progressive philanthropists, work to manipulate civil society to promote and sustain plutocratic political arrangements. In the final stages of this research, I examined how elite manipulation operates within academia – which led to my presenting a peer-review paper titled, “Progressive Social Change in the ‘Ivory Tower’? A Critical Reflection on the Evolution of Activist Orientated Research in US Universities,” at the Australasian Political Science Association conference that was held last year at the University of Queensland (July 6-9, 2008). This paper demonstrated how powerful liberal individuals and their philanthropic foundations have manipulated the university system to help bolster a capitalist political status quo. I concluded that:

Sustaining useful autonomous activist research within universities requires that radical scholars who choose to remain within the system fight to retain vital connections with one another and with activists working outside of the university environs. However, in my view, undertaking such scholarship only lends a fig leaf of respectability to what are at root capitalist enterprises; consequently a purist and more sustainable solution requires that radical intellectuals step out of the university world and work to create alternative, people-powered institutions that can seriously challenge the status quo.

As my research and learning has imparted this world view within me, I now find myself in a position where accepting this PhD is not possible. With this in mind I wish to inform you that I will not be handing in the revised PhD manuscript, titled “Mediating Social Engineering: Moving Beyond Elite Manipulation of Democracy.” My decision is consistent with the views expressed above.

I wish to emphasize that the research and analyses that informed this decision were undertaken in the closing months of my candidature, and even upon handing in my manuscript I was still unsure as to how I should proceed with regard to accepting the PhD. Rather than simply resign my candidature prior to handing in my thesis, I determined that a more powerful political statement could be made by rejecting the concept of receiving a PhD after it was accepted by the external examiners. In this way, detractors could not assert that I was incapable of completing a PhD, only that I had decided not to accept it. The difference is critical given my view of the political role that universities fulfill in justifying plutocracy.

Critically, I wish to demonstrate that I am rejecting the formal academic institution and not the reverse. For this reason, I have waited for the Chair’s final decision, which required only minor changes to the thesis, before informing Griffith University that I would not be making the suggested corrections.

Yours sincerely

Michael Barker

Thesis Details

Mediating Social Engineering: Moving Beyond Elite Manipulation of Democracy

Date Commenced Study: January 2005.
Date Submitted for External Examination: July 16, 2008.
Date Rejected: May 15, 2009.

Summary

This thesis presents an analysis of elite social engineering theorized within a conceptual framework that is presented as the Democracy Manipulation Model. Rather than being the antithesis of democratic governance, this thesis will demonstrate that in reality social engineering undergirds most democratic processes. To date, the democratic manipulations or social engineering undertaken by liberal elites has been rarely considered within scholarly discourses concerned with democratic processes.

While conservative funding bodies (e.g. conservative foundations) explicitly manipulate democracy to promote corporate elite interests, the same is not true for liberal philanthropists. Thus liberal funders describe their own activities as strengthening democratic processes, in order to undermine elite manipulation of society. This study will challenge this misleading representation of their work head on, delving below the public relations material of liberal philanthropy to investigate the long-term polyarchal effects of such philanthropy. It is proposed that contrary to their rhetoric, liberal foundations like their conservative counterparts also manipulate democracy to promote elite interests.

In the current period of top-down elite or “polyarchal” democracy – where the citizenry’s political choices (both in an electoral sense and more broadly) are restricted to rival elite factions – the role of the mass media in effective social engineering demands that it be thoroughly investigated, analysed and explained. Through the development of the Democracy Manipulation Model this thesis will seek to make apparent the power relations that are exerted by liberal elites to engineer a civil society that sustains and exports polyarchal capitalist systems worldwide.

Ostensibly progressive funding bodies like liberal foundations and the National Endowment for Democracy play a critical role in providing the capital to mould the mediated contours of civil society. Yet ironically, little attention has been paid to the social engineering function of these funding bodies on the development of progressive social movements and the media. This study will provide the first critical interrogation both the visible (mediated) and invisible (funding issues) of progressive social change to attempt to understand how progressive social movements might best reverse the neoliberal assault on democracy.

The Democracy Manipulation Model outlined in this thesis builds upon Antonio Gramsci’s work on the maintenance of ideological hegemony, and incorporates the Joan Roelofs critical analyses of liberal philanthropy, and William Robinson’s writings on the elite manipulation of popular revolutions. The Model’s central focus on the manipulation of media landscapes draws upon Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s seminal work on the political economy of the mass media, and the thesis utilises Steven Lukes three views of power to describe the dynamics of social engineering. Case studies presented in this thesis examine how elite funding bodies have consciously manipulated all manner of media systems (including organizations that are commonly perceived to be Left-leaning or progressive) in both the US and abroad in an effort to manufacture public consent for elite interests. It is hoped that the Model outlined in this thesis will provide a useful tool for progressive activists struggling to eradicate capitalism and replace it with an alternative, sustainable and equitable form of democratic governance.


Section A: Background

Chapter 1: Contextualizing Social Engineering

Chapter 2: Methodology

Section B: Media Manipulation in the USA

Chapter 3: The Mind Managers

Chapter 4: The Benton Foundation and Progressive Media

Chapter 5: Manufacturing Policies

Chapter 6: Mediating Dissent

Section C: Media manipulation Overseas

Chapter 7: Polyarchal Media for Iraq and Polyarchal Watchdogs for Venezuela

Chapter 8: Exporting Polyarchy to Eastern Europe

Conclusion: The Democracy Manipulation Model and Alternatives

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